The first time I watched the pilot episode of FX’s “Married,” I found it to be crass, sad and pessimistic, a not-funny comedy about the tribulations of marriage.

The second time I watched, just to make sure, I found it less appealing.

The so-called comedy, premiering Thursday on FX, created, directed and executive produced by Andrew Gurland, is supposed to be part of the network’s new push into comedy, a break from the male-skewing vibe the network has so far been built on.

What’s more dreary: the idea of an extremely needy husband masturbating on the bedroom floor so as not to bother his wife’s reading of a vampire novel, or that husband describing sex with his wife as “somewhere between pity sex and necrophilia”?

There is humor in these lines, to be sure, but the Nat Faxon delivery, as Russ Bowman, is more sad than cute. And what the series does to poor Judy Greer as unfulfilled wife Lina Bowman is a crime.

An excessive level of male self-absorption is mocked but ultimately taken as normal. (According to the men here, being “sensitive” means faking understanding in exchange for sex.) Neither husbands nor wives come out looking noble, but it’s the institution of marriage that gets the worst depiction.

Love is hell, and that can be funny, but is marriage really torture? Only certain comedies about marriage are.

The question facing Fox’s “Ben & Kate” is the one that confronts all quirky sitcoms that try to be different: is it a one-joke show, or does it have a future?

In this case, the challenge will be for a domestic comedy centered on a pair of unlike siblings to demonstrate that it is sturdy enough to carry a variety of characters through a variety of situations.

“He never grew up. I grew up too fast,” Kate (Johnson) says, summarizing the concept in her first breath.

He’s the nutty, unattached, irresponsible but fun big brother. She’s the too grounded, too careful younger sister who accidentally got pregnant and has a terrific daughter — her one mistake that turned out to be the best thing she’s ever done.

Together, they would make one well adjusted person.

“Ben & Kate” premieres Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. on Channel 31.

When Ben comes to town, he brings disorder and craziness with him. He makes their too quiet lives loud and interesting, injecting annoying wild ideas yet also managing to protect them from themselves.

Kate is trying to have a relationship with a new guy and warns Ben not to bring his chaos into the middle of things.

“I’m not getting sucked into one of your harebrained schemes!” she says.

And you half expect the shot to cut to them, mid-scheme. What identifies this as a modern sitcom instead of a ‘60s or ‘80s version is that it takes a few minutes to cut to the scheme. Fooled us!

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.